Stealth Evangelization

Father Ian Boyd on Vatican Radio--

Vatican Radio's Veronica Scarisbrick recently caught up with Father Ian Boyd of the Congregation of the Priests of Saint Basil, President of the G.K.Chesterton Institute for Faith and Culture.In this interview Father Boyd is asked in a special way to comment on Chesterton as a journalist, the ' rollicking journalist' this prolific author thought himself to be, as well as how his know- how of journalism might come across today in our media savvy world . According to Father Boyd, Chesterton who died in 1936 was prophetic in his writings, for example he had predicted that the next great heresy would be an attack on morality and especially sexual morality: "... he said not to be so afraid of the Russians and the Bolsheviks, because the madness of tommorrow is far more in Manhattan than in Moscow"...In this interview Father Boyd remarks how Chesterton believed that a consumerist culture had a greater power to undermine morality than any totalitarian system: "he said that when real evil comes it always comes from within "..Asked by Veronica Scarisbrick whether Chesterton saw Christ as the remedy to the brokenness of humanity Father Boyd replies that this author : "..salutes Christ as the everlasting man . He was a sacramental writer, that's to say he was religious writer who hardly ever spoke about religion. His wife Frances once said to him : "Why don't you write about God?". And he replied : ' I write about nothing else' . That's stealth evangelisation. That is he spoke through symbols and through signs, he loved riddles and allegories and believed the deepest truths could only be expressed through parables ..."